Sunset, Saturday, 8 May 2010

William Theodore Van Doren. Sunset from Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on watercolor block, 16 x 20.

I had to remind myself not to get trapped into trying to “paint what I see” (whatever that could possibly mean), but also to account for the west wind just coming around to the north, and the day cooling down with a high lifting sky oddly like a summer evening at the beach, and the million and one things you can’t know with your eyes.

Sunset, Friday, 15 January 2010

William Theodore Van Doren. Sunset from Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on watercolor block, 16 x 20.

Happy Birthday, MLK. My parents – even my parents made us shut up and listen to that speech, on the radio on the way back from the beach.

Following from yesterday’s mention of Andy Warhol: Something I appreciated, as a painter and in a larger way as an artist, was Louis Menand’s essay on Warhol in the January 11th New Yorker. While commenting, more or less, on recent books about Warhol, Menand manages to distill the history of contemporary art criticism. For anyone like me who missed the meeting about Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art and what has come after, it’s a brilliantly accessible and illuminating short course. 

Sunset, Monday, 5 October 2009

William Theodore Van Doren. Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on paper, 16 x 20.

Tonight was almost about as clear as it gets (that’s exactly how I wanted to say it) – no pattern discernible anywhere, an even gradation from bright rose gold through an undifferentiated blue.

The predominant oaks around here go pretty directly to brown, or, if we’re lucky, a sort of rust – russet rust. But today in the old cut-over fields by the Rivanna it seemed the leaves of the little blackjack oaks were still partly green, and also blotched red, yellow, gold, orange, all at once, in patterns of color so delicately balanced they were like paintings. A painting can almost suspend your vision, often you don’t focus on just one thing, the whole piece holds your attention in a sort of trance – like a hypnotic screen you see through to something much greater than just the image that seems to be there. A van Eyck can do that for me, a Cézanne always does, just as a Jackson Pollock can, the style or era doesn’t matter.

As for the little delta-shaped blackjack leaves, I’m not sure their patterns are really quite like paintings, or if I just see paintings they suggest. Probably the latter. If the leaves themselves were the paintings, I wouldn’t feel any need to make a painting of them. I stuck a leaf in my pocket and brought it home.

Sunset, Friday, 11 September 2009

William Theodore Van Doren. Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on paper, 16 x 20.

The trees stood all day in the light just as if they were real.

The sky talked a blue streak. I mean, it would not stop.

When I looked to the mountains in the west, I could have sworn my vision framed the borders of something and I was standing in the middle of it, and not at the very outer edge of something else.

I acted accordingly. For the most part. Then, as I was painting, I realized I wanted to try to catch something that was whirling away from me, just outside the frame. I couldn’t tell what it was, so, as usual, I guessed.

What we see is always an approximation between here and there. You could say that’s neither here nor there. I would agree but it doesn’t stop me from trying to put it all together.

Sunset, Wednesday, 9 September 2009

William Theodore Van Doren. Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on paper, 16 x 20.

You can think Canaletto, you can think Giorgione, you can think Cassatt, Sisley, Kahlo, Hiroshige or Poussin. You can think Turner (some may find it odd that I don’t – this is probably because I ‘discovered’ him, as in really noticed his amazing work, only very recently) or Whistler or Munch or de Kooning or O’Keeffe. Doesn’t matter. If you have any integrity at all, when you get a brush in your hand sooner or later you’ll just paint, and there probably won’t be a whole lot you can do other than paint like yourself.

Sunset, Friday, 4 September 2009

William Theodore Van Doren. Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on paper, 16 x 20.

Once upon a time, I was going to attempt a mini-essay on how all serious artists are alike in broad intent – why the similarities between a Jackson Pollock and a Jan van Eyck might be much more important than the differences. In this sparkling screed I would compare my friend Mike Fitts, a Pop Realist (I have no idea what he’s going to think of that label, which I just made up) with yours truly, a – what? (A whatever – possibly a would-be neo-Transcendentalist, and I have no idea if there’s any school of painting by that name.) But this will have to wait for another day, possibly the 30th of February.

Meanwhile, it’s more fun just to link you directly to some big versions of Mike’s paintings. Most if not all of these are done on found metal, scrap tin, the roofing of old burned-down sheds. (For example, roofs of old burned-down sheds accidentally burned down by a fellow artist.) (No name or initials, but he burned the shed down neotranscendentally.) You can choose from among a box of popcorn, an adjustable end wrench, a package of Twinkies, a Hostess cherry pie, a box of animal crackers (and directing you to all this food probably reflects my orientation more than Mike’s ... and I hope you’ve had something to eat!), an ice cream scoop, and, my favorite so far, a freshly laundered and folded white shirt.